June 15, 2003, Ruth-Icy Traverse, NCNP

My brother Carl and I skied the Ruth-Icy traverse on Sunday.  We left clearing skies in Seattle and entered clouds and drizzle as we drove toward Mt Baker.  There was no rain at the Hannegan trailhead, so we started hiking in tennis shoes under persistent clouds.  Due to a spotty snowpack in Ruth Basin, we stayed on the trail to near Hannegan Pass, then switched to boots and skis and followed the divide.  

A few skiers were ahead of us on Ruth but we never met them.  Instead, we bypassed the summit and skinned to the saddle west of Ruth.  We ate lunch and watched clouds on Mt Shuksan begin to break.  A blue hole opened over the Nooksack Cirque and cloud wisps clung to Jagged Ridge and the Crystal Glacier.  As the afternoon wore on, the clouds slowly cleared.

We skied the steep southwest gully of Ruth and traversed to the divide leading to Icy.  We saw faint tracks of climbers from the previous weekend, but no ski tracks.  We scrambled up Icy Peak and admired the chaos of the East Nooksack Glacier.  Icy's Spillway Glacier hardly exists anymore.  It has become a seasonal snowpack that breaks up and slides away every summer, like similar snowpacks on Mounts Triumph and Slesse.

After skiing off Icy Peak, we skinned back up Ruth's southwest gully and followed its south ridge to the summit.  The glare of the afternoon sun had given way to the shadows of early evening.  We decided not to ski the direct line into Ruth Creek (although it looked good), due to the spotty snowpack in the basin and the late hour.  We followed the divide back to Hannegan Pass where we had stashed our tennis shoes.

As we hiked back down the trail, the evening sun lit the valley with a green glow, the sky overhead was freshly scrubbed blue, and Ruth Mountain lent the scene an air of remarkable serenity.